PHENOMENAL: Amazing, fantastic, unique, really cool. I know this word already. But I’m writing it down here to show that I know some long words, too.
If you stand in the middle of the roof terrace, stretch out your arms, and turn around in a circle, you can look out over Berlin in every direction. You can see hundreds of rooftops and the tops of thousands of green trees, all kinds of church towers, the television tower on Alexander Square, and the skyscrapers on Potsdam Square. In the sky above there’s almost always an airplane that has taken off from one of the city’s airports, or is landing. If you turn a little faster, all of these sights blur into one and you get dizzy. And if you turn really fast, you’ll probably zoom over one of the railings with a few of the flowerpots and race them to the bottom where you’ll burst like a ripe tomato. Real blood sauce and all the rest. Which is why I’ve never tried to go really fast. I’m not a complete idiot.
Oscar was not one bit impressed by any of it. He pressed his back to the terrace door and what you could see of his face through the helmet was very pale.
Even his voice was pale somehow. But it was angry at the same time.
“You said it would be great up here, not dangerous!”
“It is.”
I was giving up all hope of him taking off his helmet. What was the matter with him? I’d expected a person who only thought about squashed bicyclists and run-over pedestrians to be happy with a change of scene. And it wasn’t dangerous up here—unless, of course, an airplane plopped down on the building. I thought about asking Oscar how much he knew about airplane crashes, but that probably wasn’t a good idea.
“I’ve never been up on a roof,” he said in a whiny voice.
I pointed to the railing that looked out over Dieffe Street. “You haven’t even been up to the edge. You can hold on to the railing.”
“I can swim,” he groaned, “but I still wouldn’t jump into a pool full of piranhas.”
“What are piranhas?”
“Predatory fish with very sharp teeth from the Serrasalmus family. They live in the tropical freshwater of South America. They can rip an injured animal or a human to shreds in a few seconds.”
All right, then. If I ever met one of the Serra-whatsit family, I would know where I stood. But …
“Are you terrified of everything?” I asked.
“I’m not terrified. I’m being cautious.”
I should have brought some Coke or lemonade. Maybe then Oscar would have felt more comfortable up here. I didn’t want to run back down to the second floor, and the KKs’ fridge, which I had peeked into by chance, was empty. Completely cleared out. How mean was that?!
“I’m just being cautious,” Oscar repeated quietly. “It’s the instinct for self-preservation. You know—keeping yourself alive.”
I looked at him helplessly. I had brought him up here for a reason. I was starting to suspect he wouldn’t be all that excited about my great idea, but seeing as we were up here already, I could at least try.
I pointed to the fold-up screen made of thick, tightly woven bamboo canes that separated the KKs’ roof terrace from the one next door.
“Would you like to look through the petition?”
“It’s called a partition.”
“I know. I was just testing.”
Thank goodness he didn’t look at me; otherwise he would have noticed right away that I’d turned bright red. Just then I would have liked to borrow his helmet.
PARTITION: Easily confused with a letter of complaint signed by lots of people, which is also a difficult word to learn. A partition is like a wall that protects you from drafts and nosy neighbors.
“What’s behind there?” said Oscar.
“Mr. Marrak’s roof terrace.”
“Who?”
“One of the three men you bumped into on the staircase. The one in the red uniform with the golden safe on it. He has his own business.” I took a deep breath without him noticing. “Alarms, Safes, and Locks: Sales, Service, and Installation.”
I said the sentence calmly, as if I were picking a daisy from a meadow, but really I had almost fainted with the effort. Now I was bursting with pride because I hadn’t made a single mistake. Mr. Marrak had once given me one of his business cards. I had studied it at least ten times a day every day for a week and learned it all by heart so that I could impress somebody one day. I never dreamed that it would be smarty-pants Oscar.
But all Oscar said was, “I see.”
Honestly! He can really ruin your good mood. On the other hand I should have known that long, complicated things are easy as pie for a child prodigy. How do they manage to know so much and remember new things right away? And what don’t they know?
“How far away from the earth is the moon?” I asked.
“Just under two hundred and forty thousand miles.”
Aha! His answer came as quick as a shot, but just under is not quite the same as all the way there, and before you know it you’d end up landing on Mars, Jupiter, or Uranus, instead of on the moon.
URANUS: On photos it’s as blue as Oscar’s crash helmet. At first I wrote YURANUS, but it seems that the automatic-correction thing works after all.
“The exact average distance,” said Oscar next to me slowly, “is two hundred and thirty-eight thousand, eight hundred and fifty-five miles.”
OK, one–nil to Oscar. But I didn’t want to give up completely. “But you had to think about it, didn’t you?”
“I thought you wanted to know how far the moon is from the earth today. But to know that we would first have to ascertain the daily parallax; and you can only do that if—”
“Don’t worry about it.” I gave up. “So, do you want to look at the other roof terrace or not?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to show you something. It’s not one bit dangerous!” I added quickly before he could start the siren thing again. “We just have to be a little careful because Mr. Marrak just got home. He might want to lie on his terrace in this nice weather.”
Finally Oscar let go of the door and came to join me by the partition. He shoved right up next to me and helped me push the bamboo canes apart so we could see through to the other side. Mr. Marrak’s roof terrace is a lot larger than the KKs’. There are more plants, fancier furniture, and the floor is made of thick, beautifully streaked wooden planks, much better than the KKs’ red-brown tiles.
“Nice,” whispered Oscar. His fingers were short and his nails were tiny and bitten. Not even the smallest of Mom’s nail stickers would have fit onto them.
“What’s that over there, that house-shaped thing with the pointed roof?” he said. “The one right at the back on the left?”
“Which one is left again?”
I almost bit my tongue. I didn’t mean to ask that. It just slipped out. I could see the stupid little house right in front of me, or its roof at least, because the entrance was hidden on both sides by more bamboo.
But Oscar simply said, “Left is where you see the little roof.”
“Of course. I knew that. It’s the top of the staircase of the next building—the one behind this one. Mr. Marrak let me peek in once when I was in his apartment. You used to be able to get into it from here, but you can’t anymore. The door to the little house is locked because there was a gas explosion. Since then the building’s been condensed.”
Oscar turned his head toward me with a jerk. He almost sliced off my ear with his open visor. “It’s been what?”
“Condensed. If you hear so badly under your funny helmet—”
“It’s condemned, not condensed.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“You did!”
“I didn’t!”
Oscar wrinkled his nose triumphantly. “You see.”
Something had gone wrong in all the fast words, but I didn’t have time to think about what it was.
“Oh, never mind!” I pointed to the littl
e house with the locked door. “Anyway, that’s where we’re going, in there.”
“Into the building that’s been condemned?”
I nodded.
“Now you’ve really gone crazy. If it’s condemned, that means it could be about to fall down!”
Flippin’ heck! All I wanted was to see for myself that there were no shadowier shadows. And no Miss Friedmann. With Oscar by my side it wouldn’t be scary, it would just be the two of us on a big adventure.
“And the building is just as locked up as that little house over there”— Oscar gestured at the pointy roof—”so there’s absolutely no chance. What do you think I am, a burglar?”
“I thought we could ask Mr. Marrak for a key. He could come with us. We could see if there’s anything still lying around in the empty apartments.” That was my last useless attempt. “A few cool old things. That kind of stuff.”
“Forget it.”
He wouldn’t change his mind and that made me annoyed. “Are you scared again?” I said, facing up to him.
“It’s got nothing to do with being scared. It’s about being sensible.”
“So you are scared again!”
“You’re a real pain in the neck, do you know that?” said Oscar with a sigh. He took a deep breath and went over to the railing from which you can look down into the backyard. Carefully he leaned over it, but only a little bit. He even stood on his tiptoes and began to rock gently, as though he were listening to music no one else could hear.
When I saw him standing there, something strange happened. I thought of Molly One and Molly Two. Molly One was my fifth birthday present from Mom. I’d never seen a hamster before, or I might have seen one but forgotten. In any case, I thought Molly was great. She waddled around and sniffed the air with her tiny pink nose. Mom had put her in a small straw basket and tied a yellow ribbon around her middle.
“There’s a cage, of course. I’ve hidden it in the living room. Hang on one second, love.”
I nodded happily and took Molly out of the basket. I’d never held something as small and warm and alive as that before. I pressed her to my chest because I loved her so much, and there was a crack.
I got Molly Two a week later because I couldn’t stop crying. She moved into the cage meant for Molly One. Mom and I had buried Molly One in a small park. I can’t remember its name. I hope she’s OK there.
Molly Two was around for a lot longer than Molly One. Mom kept on reminding me that I shouldn’t hold her too tightly, so I didn’t squeeze this time. But I let her run around in my room until one day she disappeared.
“That’s it,” Mom said after we’d turned the whole apartment upside down at least three times. “No more hamsters. I think, Frederico, you’re not yet ready to take responsibility for a small creature. Sorry. It was my mistake.”
Oscar had finished rocking and turned toward me.
“There you go. Happy now?”
“Not bad for starters,” I said generously.
“What about you?” He looked at me. “Aren’t you afraid of anything?”
“Yes. I’m afraid I could get lost in the city,” I admitted. “I can’t find my way, you know. With all those lefts and rights and stuff.”
“Has that ever happened?”
“Nah, I’ve never been very far by myself. It wouldn’t actually be that bad. Mom says if I ever get lost, I should get in a taxi and let them bring me home. If she’s not in, somebody in the building will lend me the money.”
“Good idea. And besides getting lost?”
I shook my head. I had to be careful. There was something I was more afraid of than getting lost, and I had already been thinking that I would have to tell Oscar as soon as we became official friends. But I wasn’t sure if he really was my official friend already. I would have to check.
“Are you coming back tomorrow?” I asked him.
I felt my face go red with excitement. That was a pretty smart test, I thought. Official friends always have time for each other. They want to have as many adventures together as possible. If Oscar said no …
He looked at me carefully, like I was something on a shelf in the supermarket that he wasn’t sure he wanted to buy. He scratched his arm. He fingered his airplane badge. He chewed on his lower lip with those large teeth of his.
“Actually,” he said, “I’ve got plans for tomorrow. They could take all day.”
My heart almost hit the tiled floor on the KKs’ terrace. But only almost. At the last second Oscar changed his mind. “But I can probably do that another time,” he said quickly.
I stretched one arm out in relief. “Are we official friends now?”
He placed his little hand into mine. It was really warm. He smiled. “Isn’t that what we’ve been the whole time?”
I’m sitting here writing. Normally I would have been asleep for a long time by now, but Mom has gone out with Irina and her new toenails—she did put new stickers on after all, small white daisies with really tiny yellow pollen thingies in the middle (I’m not going to look up the word now). And she said I could go to bed whenever I felt like it. It is summer vacation, after all. Now I’m sitting here and I have to write down everything that I’m thinking about so I remember it tomorrow.
First of all I have to say that today was at least half a success. Oscar’s my friend now, even if he has a screw loose, and Mom thinks that Mr. Haven is the hottest thing she’s ever seen, even though she doesn’t want to flirt with him. Flirting is when you go out with somebody; then you fall in love, get married, and make babies. I could tell Mom that I don’t mind what order she does that in and then she might see things differently and invite Mr. Haven to bingo tomorrow after all.
Hopefully!
Earlier, I sat in the thinking chair and looked out the window. The moon is still almost full and if you turn your head a bit, you can see it between the branches of those trees with the funny peeling bark. Today the moon is completely orange. It’s probably on fire up there just under two hundred and forty thousand miles away. So I was sitting there, thinking about the day, and I suddenly asked myself what was going on this afternoon in the stairway when everybody crashed into each other. I mean, today was Monday! It’s normal for Mr. Marrak to be around at that time of day—he can do what he wants with his time because he has his own business—but what was somebody like Mr. Haven doing at home? He must have some kind of a job, otherwise he couldn’t rent such an expensive apartment. Was he on vacation or what? And Mr. Kirk, too—out and about in the middle of the day when he should have been making teeth.
Very strange.
I’m really looking forward to tomorrow! Oscar is coming over and we’re going to go for a walk by the canal, even if Oscar doesn’t know it yet. It’ll be great. If the weather’s nice, maybe we’ll get ice-cream cones. Nah, we’ll get ice-cream cones whatever the weather. And then I’ll tell Oscar what my greatest fear is and where it comes from. I’ll tell him the story of how my dad died.
TUESDAY
up and down
Sometimes you wake up in the morning, open your eyes, and think of something beautiful right away. It’s as though a little sun is rising inside you, making you all warm and bright.
Oscar and I had arranged to meet at ten o’clock. I snuggled up in bed and pictured us walking along the canal together. When I’m alone I only ever go straight over the bridge to school because as soon as I lose sight of things I know, it’s over and out. I’d get lost in a supermarket even if it only had one aisle. I’m a hopeless case.
But today Oscar would be with me. We could turn left and right wherever we liked. We could walk far, far down the canal, somewhere I’d never been before. With a child prodigy at your side, far, far away is a piece of cake. Even if you do get lost, your friend can ask somebody the way and he’ll remember what people tell him, left and right and all the rest of it. It would be a piece of cake with icing on top!
I saw the wall of the building behind shimmering through the window. There were no sh
adows from the clouds. It would be a perfect day with Oscar. And this evening I was going to bingo with Mom. Maybe I could persuade her to take Mr. Haven along after all. Or I could ask Mr. Haven if he felt like showing up without an invitation. He could pretend he was looking for his helpless old mother, who got lost while shopping in a supermarket with only one aisle. What if he never found her, the poor lady? What a mystery!
I looked at my Mickey Mouse alarm clock. Almost nine o’clock — I still had an hour. Then again it could also be a quarter to twelve, because sometimes I confuse Mickey’s short and long arms, but I never wake up that late, not even on vacation, and I was sure Oscar would have rung the bell if I had overslept.
I jumped out of bed, went to the bathroom, and tiptoed past Mom’s bedroom into the kitchen to get a bowl of Crunchy Nut Clusters and a glass of orange juice. Ten minutes later I’d had my breakfast, brushed my teeth, and was dressed and ready to go.
Much too early.
If I’m waiting for something or I don’t really know what to do with myself, I sit in the thinking chair in the living room. I can’t remember when Mom and I named it the thinking chair, but we really love it. It’s big and cozy. Sometimes I need it to calm down the lottery barrel. But it’s also great to sit in and read comics and to look out the window at the leaves of the trees moving in the wind. Sometimes sparrows sit in the trees’ branches, chirping at each other excitedly. You can think up stories with heroes like O and his wooden horse or you can think about important questions such as whether Miss Marple will ever marry Mr. Stringer. He’s her best friend. He’s clumsy and too stupid for Miss Marple, but she’s got nobody else to fall in love with except the fat stable owner.
The Spaghetti Detectives Page 5
